Chapter 4 - Twelve Missing Hours
Rachel had disappeared once while she and Ethan were dating.
He had forgotten about it because, at the time, there had seemed to be nothing worth remembering.
They were twenty-four.
Ethan was working for a landscaping company while finishing a construction-management program.
Rachel had just started at the architectural firm where she would later become a project manager.
One Friday, they had plans to meet for dinner.
Rachel never arrived.
Her phone went straight to voicemail.
At midnight Ethan called Marlene.
Marlene told him Rachel had come down with food poisoning and was sleeping at her apartment.
When Ethan went there the next morning, Rachel answered the door.
She looked exhausted.
She said she had been sick.
He brought soup.
They watched movies.
That was it.
Or so he had believed.
Now, standing in a hospital hallway twelve years later, Ethan realized something.
Rachel had never described being sick.
Marlene had.
When he asked Rachel how she felt, she had only said, “Better.”
Detective Gabriel Alvarez arrived shortly before midnight.
He was in his early forties, with tired eyes and the calm manner of a man who had learned that panic rarely improved facts.
Ethan told him everything.
The bedroom.
The purse.
Lily’s statement.
Rachel’s collapse.
The missing Friday twelve years earlier.
Alvarez took notes.
“Did your wife ever discuss memory problems?”
“Nothing like this.”
“Nightmares?”
Ethan hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Sometimes.”
“About what?”
“She never remembered.”
“Anything recurring?”
“Doors.”
Alvarez looked up.
“What kind?”
“She used to wake up saying there was a green door.”
“Anything else?”
“A bell.”
“A bell?”
“Like an elevator bell.”
“Did she ever seek therapy?”
“A few years ago.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know the name.”
“That would help.”
Ethan nodded.
“I can find it.”
“What about her relationship with Marlene?”
“Complicated.”
“Violent?”
“No.”
“Controlling?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Ethan thought.
Marlene called constantly.
She criticized Rachel’s clothes, job, parenting, marriage.
She remembered every childhood mistake Rachel supposedly made.
Whenever Rachel disagreed with her, Marlene produced a story proving Rachel’s memory was unreliable.
“You’ve always been forgetful.”
“You remember things dramatically.”
“That never happened.”
“You’re confused again.”
Ethan had heard those phrases for years.
He had never considered them evidence.
Now they sounded different.
“Detective.”
“Yes?”
“What if Marlene has been making Rachel think she can’t trust her own memory?”
Alvarez’s expression remained neutral.
“That’s a possibility.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What about the drug?”
“The hospital is testing it.”
“Restricted pharmacy.”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it isn’t something a visitor can walk in and obtain.”
“So Marlene has help.”
“Or had help.”
Ethan stared at him.
“You think this goes back years.”
“I think a twelve-year-old medical document was in the purse of a woman accused of drugging the same patient today.”
Alvarez closed the notebook.
“I don’t like coincidences that specific.”
The next morning, police searched Marlene’s home.
Ethan was not permitted inside.
He stood across the street with Lily while investigators carried boxes through the front door.
Lily pointed toward an upstairs window.
“That’s the closet.”
An hour later, Alvarez walked toward them carrying a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was a photograph.
Lily had been right.
The picture showed three people.
Marlene.
Claire.
And Rachel.
Rachel looked approximately eight years old.
Claire wore red sneakers.
Behind them was a green door.
Ethan’s heart stopped.
The same green door Rachel had seen in nightmares.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
R-17
Phase One complete.
Ethan looked at Alvarez.
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where was it taken?”
“We’re working on it.”
Lily tugged at Ethan’s shirt.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“There were more.”
“More pictures?”
She nodded.
“Kids.”
Alvarez crouched.
“What kids, Lily?”
“At Grandma’s house.”
“Where?”
“A box.”
“What did it look like?”
“Blue.”
“Where was it?”
“Under the floor.”
Ethan stared.
Alvarez became very still.
“What floor?”
“Grandma’s closet.”
Investigators returned upstairs.
Twenty minutes later, they removed a section of flooring.
Beneath it was a cavity.
Inside the cavity sat a blue metal box.
It was locked.
The key found in Marlene’s purse opened it.
Stamped on that key was the number 1187.
Inside the box were thirty-four photographs of children.
Each photograph carried a letter and number.
R-17.
C-04.
M-11.
J-22.
Some children were smiling.
Some were crying.
Several appeared sedated.
And beneath the photographs was a document bearing the logo of a research facility Ethan had never heard of.
The Whitaker Cognitive Development Center.
Director:
Dr. Samuel Vale.
Ethan looked at Alvarez.
“Is that the same man on the prescription bottle?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
Alvarez did not answer immediately.
Then he handed Ethan another photograph.
It showed Samuel Vale standing beside Marlene.
May you like
The picture had been taken only six months earlier.
“He’s supposed to have been dead for eight years.”
